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Fabio

Loyal orgheads know I love talking politics. Here’s how I rate my own performance as a pundit. Let’s start with the Democrats.

• I argued in an earlier post that “Even if Hillary comes in 2nd or 3rd in Iowa, which is plausible, she will most certainly do well in New Hampshire and then be saved by a “landslide” provided by New York and New Jersey.” I’m feeling good about February 5, pundit wise.
• The media would declare a Hillary win a “comeback” even though she still leads in most national and state wide polls. Once again, give it up for Fabio.
• The core of the democratic party – downscale union voters and working women – have supported Hillary through thick and thin and there is little evidence that Obama has budged these core constituencies. Score another one for Fabio.
• I thought South Carolina would go to Hillary because Southern democrats love establishment candidates. I was extremely wrong. Boy, was I wrong. The source of my error was underestimating the Obama ground game and the ability of the Clintons to completely alienate the black vote. My bad.
• Overall I had three models of the democratic race. 1. A Hillary knockout early on. Didn’t happen. 2. An Obama knockout. Didn’t happen. 3. A weird mixed early primary result, with a Hillary Super Tuesday wrap up. Very likely. I assigned zero probability to other outcomes.

On the Republican side:

• I predicted that McCain would emerge as the GOP candidate: “McCain kills off straggling Giuliani campaign. Romney straggles for weeks, Wesley Clark style.” It’s not a sealed deal yet, but McCain has won two hard fought contests (NH, SC) and is doing very well in Florida. He’s also doing well in mega-states like California. The only serious competition is Romney, whose wins are in two small weird caucuses (Wyoming, Nevada) and a home state (Michigan). Basically, the GOP has asked themselves if they will tolerate a real religious conservative (Huckabee) or even a fake one (Romney) and the answer is likely no.
• I did not forsee Huckabee in Iowa or the completely pathetic implosion of Giuliani, who will likely drop  outafter Florida next week.

What about the remainder of the race? My predictions:

• For Democrats, Feb 5 will probably end up with Clinton wins in CA, NY and NJ. Obama will take Illinois, Georgia, and perhaps some of the midwest (Kansas is my guess). Even if Obama wins a mess of states, it won’t be enough to overcome the CA-NY-NJ triple whammy. That’ll be enough to easily keep Clinton in the race and she can slowly build her delegate count and avoid the convention problems. Obama’s wins have come from outstanding ground game, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough to cancel out the advantages of incumbency in a national primary. Clinton ’08 will be like Clinton ’92, when Bill  battled Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas through a bunch of states, after it was clear who the winner was after Super Tuesday.
• For the GOP, the clear Feb 5 winner will be McCain in a way that robs Romney of the credibility he needs to continue. Romney’s campaign will be dead by mid-Feb and he’ll drop by early March.

Other predictions: Hillary will nominate for VP a respected, but mellow, democrat like Evan Bayh, Mark Warner, John Edwards, or Bill Richardson. John Edwards will get a consolation prize for staying in the race and splitting the anti-Hillary vote. I don’t know who McCain will nominate (wild card: Lieberman??) for VP, but McCain’s strategy will be to keep the entire South (which is easy against Hillary), the conservative Midwest (inc. Ohio), and add New Mexico, Colorado, and perhaps either Wisconsin or Minnesotta. I still don’t know who will win, because I can see Florida and Ohio going to either candidate. It’s up in the air because McCain’s appeal to independents cancels the problems with being a Republican in 2008, while Hillary’s negatives cancel out the advantages of being the Democrat in 2008.